Lanterne Rouge Guitars

18/11/2022

Adirondack Perfection

Legendary guitarist Frank Gambale explains the feature and background of his new signature acoustic guitar Cort LUXE

13/07/2021

Recently serviced and set-up in the Lanterne Rouge Guitars shop: Lakland Skyline Series 55-02 5-string Bass. Cherry Sunburst with Maple neck. The dry winter weather with relative humidity often decreasing to below 25%, plays havoc with the set-up of the neck dip and action. The decrease in moisture in the length of the neck causes the dip to decrease, which in turn causes fret buzz.

18/06/2021

Thank you for visiting my Page.

I am an Airline Pilot by Profession, with a career spanning 38 years, but I have always been a Musician at Heart. Due to the world-wide effect that the pandemic has had on commercial aviation and the travel industry, I have been retrenched by my employer of the last 26 years, SAA Flight Operations.

As a consequence, I have taken a huge leap of faith and taken my life-long passion for guitars, and turned it into a small business. My aim is to deliver first class service, to satisfy the requirements of Guitar collectors, the needs of the Performing Artist and Pro Musician, and campfire Serenader alike.

I am new to Facebook and have only joined recently in order to promote my craft, but I have spent much of my life repairing, or working on musical instruments of all kinds. I have also been involved in playing music for most of my life, taking music (piano) as a subject at school from Sub-A through to Matric, played guitars in various Garage Bands, and I played the Trumpet in my high school cadet band, the schools' Big Band/Swing Band as well as in the Infantry School Military Brass Band, during my National Service. I have played acoustic guitars in duo's, been a voice in a Barber Shop a'Capella Quintet, and throughout have mainly played the Bass guitar in the fabulous Blues Band, The Deep Blue C.

Of late I have found an outlet for my passion as a Bassist as a member of the Worship Team at Lewende Woord Brummeria.

Pilots are perfectionists by nature and take meticulous care even in the smallest of tasks. Whether its a string change and set-up that you need, a repair, fret work, or a complete restoration of a Vintage or Rare Guitar, you have my personal assurance that I will take the utmost care of your precious instrument. I have learnt from the best, and honed my skills for many years, mainly working on my own modest collection of Vintage, Unique, Rare and Boutique Guitars.

I pride myself as a Fender Bass Specialist, however please take a moment to page through my posts below and see the scope of work I have undertaken recently. Whilst not a complete reflection of all the jobs I have done, it is just a sample of what I am able to do for you.

I will keep posting about interesting tasks that I undertake in future, and I look forward to being of service to you.

16/06/2021

NORD Piano 88 Restoration - "BEFORE" -
Although mainly a guitar specialist, I have attended to all sorts of other unique and interesting musical instruments in my workshop, including the tuning of and repairs to acoustic pianos, repairs to a violin, several trumpets, a bugle, and even cymbals.
This NORD Stage Piano belonging the Lewende Woord Brummeria Worship Band was in dire need of a proper service.
It presented with several snags - it had been dropped to the ground at some stage, which damaged the outer finish and dented the chassis, it was sounding slightly flat in the lower parts of its register, sharp in the upper keys, the volume of sounds triggered by the keys were not equal, certain keys were sticking while one was clearly broken, and the AC mains cable would simply fall out in the middle of a performance.
I was approached by the Church's technical and broadcast Engineer, Anthony Bassist Koopman and was asked to undertake the service and repair to the unit.
How hard can that be, right...?
I gratefully accepted the job and here follows the story. The process of strip down and re-assembly is described in pictures with a caption next to each.

16/06/2021

NORD Piano 88 Restoration - "AFTER" -
The process of re-assembly is described in pictures with a caption in each.

01/06/2021

50th Anniversary Ltd Ed Jazz Bass - "BEFORE" -
I have always had a special affinity for a Jazz Bass, and being a '64 model myself have always loved the way the basses of this era were made and especially how they sound, the whole being so much better than just the sum of its parts.
The '64 neck feels slim and fast and is arguably the best Jazz neck shape ever introduced - no wonder Fender has so often used this spec again in later year production runs.
I bought this pre-owned Bass because it was just so unique and contains a blend of all the best vintage and modern design details that makes up this wonderful, iconic instrument.
Vintage touches included are a '64 spec maple neck, but with modern graphite re-inforcing and late '60's style pearloid block inlays, but without the edge binding. Additionally, grey bottom Custom Shop '75 Vintage Jazz single-coil pick-ups with the bridge pickup in the further aft '70's position, provide the growl, a '70's Style Bass-Side Thumb Rest is fitted and of course that stunning metallic CAR Nitro finish over an Alder body. And who doesn't love a matching painted head-stock, proudly displaying a period correct '62 decal! All the "ashtrays" are present and correct, but were removed for these photo's.
Modern touches include a HMV bridge with string-through, modern Fender/Hipshot machine heads, and a special 4-bolt neck plate confirming this bass' heritage.
I went to great lengths to restore this bass to a condition better than the day it was dispatched from the factory - even when brand new they leave a lot to be desired, and polish dust and a mess left (by the factory) under the pick-guard and control cavity, had damaged and scarred the Nitro finish.
Here at Lanterne Rouge we sweat the small stuff on every detail, so this bass was going to get all the TLC that it so richly deserved.

01/06/2021

50th Anniversary Ltd Ed Jazz Bass - "AFTER" -
The body finish has been repaired, cleaned and polished, and now the metallic Candy Apple Red looks absolutely glorious. A "stealth" string tree has been added to the A-string capstan. Frets have been re-crowned and polished, the fingerboard cleaned and oiled, and the slim nut slots cleaned and polished.
After re-assembly, new RotoSound RS66 45-105 strings were fitted. With the set-up completed, the slim '64 spec neck felt and played beautifully, with intonation spot on across the board. I plugged her into my Ashdown rig, dialled the volume up to 11 and proper growling Vintage Jazz tone filled the whole neighbourhood.
What an absolutely wonderful bass to own, a definite Keeper.

31/05/2021

Taylor 114ce re-string and setup - "BEFORE" -
This customer guitar is approximately 10 years old. It has seen a lot of use but little love, and presented with unusual amounts of "finger fudge" on the neck and body, damage to the satin finish on the upper bout and lower waist, extensive fret wear, and even the usually hard wearing ebony fingerboard that had never been cleaned or oiled, showed signs of deterioration.

31/05/2021

Taylor 114ce re-string and setup - "AFTER" -
Frets were dressed and re-crowned, fingerboard was cleaned and oiled with Guitar Nomad F-One oil. While the strings were removed, the interior was inspected, the neck join was checked and tightened and all pick-up wiring that had come adrift was re-secured.
Taylor brand satin finish polish was used to clean up and revive the finish that had become caked with dirt. Machine heads were serviced and tightened, and the saddle lowered by .5 mm and set for a lower action.
After re-stringing with Elixer PB 12-53's, the nut was "tuned" and intonation set accurately.

31/05/2021

Custom Build Fender Precision Bass - ordered by Hein Kruger, bassist with Straatligkinders.
A Black P body with a Maple neck was required and had to be sourced, and a classic tortoise shell pick guard was specified, to finish off the R&R look of the bass nicely.
It was fitted with a Fender Original Precision pick-up, an accurate reproduction of the 1962 P Bass pickup using Anico 5 magnets, vintage fibre bobbin construction and genuine original-era cloth wiring (Inductance 6.4 Henries)
The bass was to be played and tuned to D standard, and to achieve intonation accuracy was fitted with heavier 50 - 110 strings. This required some modification to the nut and heavier saddles were used.
It turned out to be one monster bass with fantastic phat P Bass tone! Go and listen to any of their more recent recordings!

31/05/2021

1974 Fender P Bass restoration.
This bass was entrusted to me by a client who had seen the work I had done to my own P Bass, of a similar vintage (pics elsewhere on my page). Except for the pick-up, this bass was all-original and well worth restoring. Overall it was in a very poor condition, all the metal parts had tarnished badly and the bridge had rusted considerably, so that most of the threads on the adjusting screws had ceased. The challenge is always to try and save and re-use the original parts, rather than just to replace things with new bits. All parts were carefully stripped, de-rusted, cleaned and restored to working order and only the threads on the saddles were re-cut. (see pics)
Extensive fret wear was present, especially on the first six frets across the board, and up the neck along the D-string to the 15th fret. Sufficient fret material was left to shoot the neck, dress and re-crown, and all the original frets were saved.
This bass was to be used for studio recording work, so all Electromagnetic Interference (EMI - 50 cycle hum, induction RFI and static) had to be taken care of. The control cavities and back of the pick guard were prepared with copper foil tape to eliminate all EMI.
The original finish on both the neck and body was cleaned and restored and despite several areas of heavy wear, chips, nicks and buckle rash, it came out really well. In the end the only part that I had to replace was the nut, which was beyond repair.
With re-assembly complete, new strings were fitted and after I completed the set-up, the intonation was remarkably spot on and in-tune at the 3rd, 5th, 7th and 12th frets. The neck and frets felt great, the action was set low, and the bass now played and sounded absolutely magnificent. P-Bass punch and growl aplenty, with not an ounce of hum or hiss even when standing right in front of the amp set at high volume.
The really important part is that my (tough) customer was ecstatic when he collected his bass, and complimented me on the attention to detail, and quality of work done to his bass.
His comments: "The bass is very even across the entire register, the fret dressing is spot on, and the set-up is superb. Grounding and hum issues are gone, job extremely well done!" Thank you to Adrian D Levi for allowing me to post this story and the pics of his bass.

31/05/2021

Repairs done by me to cymbals belonging to Pro Drummer Marnus van der Merwe, and the Lewende Woord Brummeria Worship Band. Cymbal edges are usually only 1 mm thick and might split, crack or fray. This damage can be notched, drilled, cleaned up and polished. Bronze will tarnish over time and with use, mainly caused by the drummers' sweaty hands. This will spoil not only the way the cymbals look, but also the tone which becomes more muted and dull. These cymbals in picture have been repaired and polished with care so as not to remove the Logo's. A cymbal that cracks along a tone ring can be cut smaller, turning say, a 20" Ride into an 18", which will give it a new lease on life, at very little cost by comparison to replacement.